Assignment 1 - Non-Fiction Selection and Dialectic Journal

You are expected to turn in your dialectic journal on the first day of class. The dialectic journal allows students to take notes and make connections to what they've read. Set up your journal in the following format:

Chapter & Subtitle (Prologue: The Founding, Chapter 1: The Year, Chapter 2: The Winter, Chapter 3: The Argument...etc)Your goal is to determine what the author's main point is for each chapter. Select quotations from the text you find interesting & important. After you have read & taken notes on the chapter, look back over what you've written & ask yourself "so what? What was the author's point?" Write out a sentence or 2 that explains what the author's point was for that chapter.

Page Quotation Why this Quotation is interesting or Importantp. 16 "the revolutionary generation was freer to question the old self-evident truths & invent their own without fear of offending established sources of power authority because, in fact, there are none."

By quotation, I mean a passage from the book that you find interesting or important….it does not have to be an actual direct quote from a historical personality – it can simply be a quotation of a fact or opinion that the author makes in the book. There is no firm requirement for the number of quotations that you should select, but you must have a separate section for each of the 7 chapters of the book (including the Prologue)

At the end of each chapter’s quotations, write a 2-3 sentence summary of what the author’s main point (thesis) for that chapter was.